Kevin Patterson's Phoenix Swamp Beast

After they drained the marshlands for another sub-division the Swamp Beastrealized it was time to move on. The un-dead bluesman within him was drawnto the sound of a lonesome whistle so he ended up on a west bound train.

But trains don't stop much these days, and the poor lumbering peat bog foundhimself in Tempe. The Swamp Beast sniffed out the closest wild water hecould find and bedded down beneath the 202 and the 101.

Slowly he turned into a troll. But the speeding motorists above were toodistracted by their cell phones and changing lanes to be terrorized by hisappearance on the side of the road.

So he started wandering away from the high-speed intersection. He wanderedEast, the only way not too dense with suburbia. As we wandered around theReservation and Apache Junction he turned into a mummy, but he had to usediscarded fast food wrappers for his cloths and he couldn't find anypyramids big enough to hide him so he kept wandering ever further away fromthose pesky frantic humans.

When he finally hit the Superstition Mountains, he noticed other etherealbeings wandering around. The soul of a Dutchman, the salt pillars of awandering tribe, and the coyote seemed like decent enough spirits. Hedecided to stop his wanderings and put some roots down. He raised his handin praise for finally finding a place to belong and became a Saguaro.

(Patterson is currently getting ready for the apocalypse and recording his findings here).

The countdown to Best of Phoenix begins! Last year, we profiled 100 Creatives who made a mark on the local arts scene. This year, we'll have 100 creative representations of Phoenix. No scope or requirement on medium or size -- we'll include photography, painting, sculpture, video, installation, literary, and more. What do you see when you Imagine PHX?